Yegor Bugayenko asked me to be a guest on his podcast to talk about Hiring Geeks That Fit. I gladly accepted and the podcast is now up: Shift-M/10.
We spoke about many issues in hiring:
- Laundry list/shopping list problem in job descriptions
- Starting with a “test” or a phone screen (I need to write a post about starting with auditions/tests first.)
- What “cultural fit” really means
- How we build interpersonal skills via doing work. (See Building a Team With Feedback and Create Your Successful Agile Project)
- Focusing on what kind of learning throughout your career and generalizing specialists
- I ranted about ATS and keyword hell
- If you have “equal” people, who do you hire? (I need to write more about this!) (We spoke about geographically distributed teams here and why wage cost is separate from labor cost.)
- Ageism and the problems it creates
- Hiring based on low salary vs resource efficiency and flow efficiency
- Showing open source work vs learning (what do you look for and why?)
- Certifications and what you really get from a cert
- Open book management, especially with regard to salaries. I wrote about some of this in Agile HR, Part 5: Performance Management, the Career Ladder
I had a blast and ranted/raved several times. In the last part about career ladder, I did mention the difference between boy parts and girl parts. I was not so mature. (I am a work in progress…) It’s still safe for work or the car.
I’ll listen to the podcast later today and return with any comments. In the meantime, re: body parts, we are both works in progress. I maintain that women can do anything men can do except write their names in the snow. And most women are wise enough delegate that, if the requirement comes up.
Dave, I laughed out loud!! I would definitely delegate :-))